18 Sept '14
The summer is over, or at least we have returned from our travels back to UK. The heat is still in the high 30s and we are struggling to adjust to its energy sapping effects. Is it our age? 50+? We find ourselves shattered and struggling to stay up anything after 9.30pm! In July during Ramadan we were advised to hold off going into the city until at least an hour after sunset because it was only then that the streets came to life as people poured out from their hot homes after breaking their fast to enjoy the cooler evening air. Truth was we tried it one night but got to 10.30 when people were just starting to appear; She looked at me, I looked at her, we both yawned and agreed that we needed to get to bed before we collapsed. Q.Talking of 'the olden days', am I the only one who believes that they are making toilets seats at least two inches lower than they used to? I find myself sitting there that little bit longer summoning the energy to get back on my feet. To add to that, toilet paper is now made harder and thinner than when I was growing up! Actually I do remember using squares of newspaper cut up and tied on a piece of string? My grandmother's outside loo had such mod cons. Her High Street home never had an inside toilet! Anyway back to today; there is an exception to this more recent decline in the quality of toilet paper and it can be found in two specific locations;
No1. in the Thompson's house in Ballyholme Bangor, and No2. 'Chez Laura's' in Sandhurst, England.
I hope Rosemary didn't have her spare triple-thick velvet rolls counted! If she did, and she is reading this, it wasn't me that nicked them! William had a touch of the runs that weekend you were in London. As for Laura she bought a job lot of 144 rolls destined for Windsor Castle cheap on the internet!
Summer hols consisted of a week and a half in NOT so sunny but wet and cold Norn Ireland, in a beautiful house near Enniskillen. After an appearance with Uncle Hugo (Duncan) on his afternoon live radio show direct from Kesh marina we were inudated with friends calling to check if it really was us. Sad sad people that you are, needing to fill your day by listening to such a programme. Roberta and I cringed when Uncle H interviewed Khalid, 'Marrakech meets Kech', and then we slopped off when he asked to speak to us too. The cold lazy evenings were spent nipping in and out of the hot tub in the back corner of the garden. Khalid was a big woose who refused to join us in the tub, confused how he would make the 10 step walk from the house to the tub and back with out freezing in the nearly sub-zero temps. Actually it was between 10 and 12 degrees but felt colder to him as he had just left Marrakech where the daytime temp was over 40 and the night time never much below 30! Bit of a shock to his system After Fermanagh we had a few days in Belfast and then Bangor before I took Roberta on a luxury cruise - the Belfast to Liverpool ferry. No expense spared I tell you, even though it was a day sailing I booked a lovely family berth, complete with porthole, for us to sleep in, with a Boots meal deal each!! Sheer luxury and extravagance; Cunard and P&O eat your heart out.
Liverpool was more like work - apart from having fun with Aidyn, teaching him to pretend drive, 'vroom vroom', we painted Karen's bathroom and I recomissioned her wireless alarm system in the house.
Next up was Sandhurst and yet even more work. I ripped up the old laminate floor in Laura's wee kitchen and set to replacing it with this wonderfully simple 'cut and click' laminate tile-effect system. Simple my a.....!!! Three days later with aching arms, back and knees, Roberta and I managed to complete the task. In truth there is evidence of a few minor blips and mis-measurements, but a blind man on a galloping horse would never see them. Actually it worked out quite well and does looks the part. I have however instructed my family to shoot me if I ever suggest laying another floor, and I mean that! Happy to advise or even supervise but see getting that pressure on at the right angle to click those boards in at one end without the ones slipping out at the other end was nigh on impossible. At one stage Roberta and Laura and myself were all lined up pushing and shoving and yelling at one another when we didn't get the pressure on evenly across the width of the boards we were trying to lay. As I referred to above, I am Fifty-Ten next year so I need to pick my challenges more carefully.
8th September saw us return to Marrakech, travelling light as usual. I say light but in truth that would only be by Von Trapp family standards. We checked in with 5 hold bags and a full 100Kg of luggage plus our carry-on bags. Roberta still insists she had only two wee tops and a new pair of leggings in the extra luggage and it was down to me and my new golf clubs. Truth is my new golf irons and 3 wood were in a golf bag weighing a total of 12 Kg. The rest was all her highness's and the beginnings of her christmas shopping for the family coming out here in December. In addition we had the usual barrow-full of medications for the next 6 months, 6 tins of M&S Ham and Stewing Stake plus various bits and pieces to bring back for the 'extended' Minejem family. It has taken us a week to unpack and put away and I suspect we will lose many of these christmas presents when we go looking again in November before we return to London for another week's christmas shopping with Laura. Oh well, they will always do birthdays or even Christmas 2015!
Today 2nd October, it is a mere 35 degrees outside and I am stuck in the small salon with the air-con blasting cool air over me. Unbelievably hot for the time of the year, even by Marrakech standards. Forecast is it is to get cooler, down to 29 by the weekend, can't wait. Tried my new golf clubs out yesterday and definitely improved my score by as many as 5 or 6 shots though the last few holes were a bit of a struggle in the hot sun. Sleeping at night is a challenge. Roberta can't stand the noise of the air con and insists we leave the window open. Fine except for the incredible variety of noises that are generated in the street below. Maybe I will do a feature 'A night in the Life...' for a future blog. Anyway window is now firmly shut after an intruder climbed into the house in the early hours. I thought I heard something in the kitchen and so got up to investigate. Nothing, so I went back to bed closing all the windows before retiring again. Half an hour later there was a crash in the kitchen and so up I jumped and went to look, when this black figure shot past me and tried to jump out the now closed bedroom window. He bounced of the glass and fell back on the bed, causing absolute mayhem as Roberta woke from her deep sleep. After a dance around the furniture, I managed to reopen the window and corner the intruder, forcing him back out his original point of entry. Now many of you know we have bars on all the windows, and when I investigated further I found our waste bin in the kitchen turned upside down and the claw marks of our black intruder having ripped open the plastic waste bags. Now you all know, Roberta just loves cats (NOT)!!!! No more open windows at night and back to the AC, noise and all, yippee. UPDATE: someone has deserted three very young jet black pups in our hedge, right below our bedroom window. They sleep all day and yap and bark all night keeping us awake, windows open or shut. What do you do without the guilt of disposing of them in a fatal sort of way.
Gotta go, Roberta wants to carry out the annual audit of duvets. I say annual but it usually happens at least four times a year and each time results in strong words being shared when we can't find the good ones that are kept for our special visitors - not that there are very many nights a year when you actually need any sort of duvet, winter or summer, but here goes once again.
21 July'14
Oops forgot to alert all you followers of my blog that I had posted the June entry so read on for double entertainment this month.
This month I am going back to sharing our travels, much like my very first blog entry way back in April 12! Just over a week ago Roberta and I drove the 610 km north to catch a ferry from Tangier Med across to Spain and then a bus down to the Spanish/Gibraltar border, where we celebrated the glorious 12th July with Joe and Maggie (well it was Joe's birthday, so any excuse for a bottle or two of Tinto Virano!) The drive north was pretty uneventful being motorway almost all the way and we covered the 610 Km in exactly 6 hours, sticking to the 120 speed limit apart from the bottleneck getting through the Casablanca and Rabat areas. In truth you can't break the speed limit one little bit because in that drive we reckon we were clocked by radar at least 12 times, and that was the ones we could see hiding behind bridges, sign post and even in the roadside bushes. Honestly in one instance police were actually using a whole in the middle of a large roadside warning of the Peage coming up in 5km for their camera to spy through!
On arrival at the big new Tangier ferry port we planned to leave the car and go over as foot passengers. Could we find a suitable car park? No! In the end we parked in this huge concreted area in the middle of nowhere about 200m from the new train terminal which is not yet functioning. We spotted a local man with no 'bars in the grate' directing us into an imaginary parking slot in a vast concrete area with only two other cars - honestly it could hold about 600, but he insisted we park in a certain direction right up against a make-shift kerb. With our fluent (not!) arabic we determined that there was no charge but that he would keep an eye on it for us. We were not sure he understood it wasn't for a few hours but for 5 full days. Anyway we unpacked, locked up car and walked up to station area to buy our ferry tickets. Even that had its challenges with no credit card facilities working, a bank with no ATM service - lucky I had 2 $100 notes in my wallet which we were able to change to buy a return ferry ticket for us both. A bus took us down to the quay where our ferry was due to depart and our tickets were taken from us only to be returned after 15 minutes waiting in the 40 degree sun, put back on a bus, driven to a cafe down at the port. Great the cafe did have shade but nothing to eat or drink; remember it is Ramadan and so local cafes are closed all day until after fttor - breaking of fast -around 7.45pm! Anyway one hour later we are called back to bus and then on to ferry for a quick 1 hour skip across the Straights of Gibraltar and into Algecirias; bus to La Linea and then a walk across the frontier into British Gibraltar where Maggie picked us up and took us back to their abode. Door to door 12 hours, not bad. Guinness, real Fish and Chips, salted butter on sliced Pan Loaf all waiting for us to enjoy! Guess what we miss most?
'Tales of our travels'....we arrived to catch ferry with one carry-on each, travelling light as per usual. Really funny to see a moroccan travelling light with what basically amounted to a Tesco shopping trolley filled with his bags as well as two huge bundles of fresh mint and goodness knows what else that we couldn't see. On the way back I was prompted to help a dear old moroccan lady of 4 ft nothing and a rather large suitcase get up onto the bus. What I didn't know was that this suitcase must have weighed 50Kg and boy did I pay the price for my eagerness to help. I felt an immediate serious back twinge and after the 6 hour drive back to Marrakech I was literally immobile and bedridden for the next 48 hours, no joke. Thanks to a lot of TLC and gentle massages from my darling wife, I am now able to carry out basic life skills again, like pull up my own pants, roll over in bed and even finish going to the toilet. Is this a taste of things to come I ask myself? (I now understand the true value of a bidet or 'bum gun' as Lyndsey called it, when simple things in life become unreachable!)
Back to the car at the port... on arriving back in Morocco after 5 whole days in Gibraltar I was very nervous that my car would be gone, towed away, stolen or the like. Joy above all joy, there it sat exactly where we left it in the imaginary parking slot that the toothless wonder had directed us into all those days ago. We were just loaded up and about to start the engine when this smiling face invaded my windscreen with this wide toothless grin; our own wee car park guardian! He proceeded to direct us backwards just in case we might over shoot the concrete wall some 200 m away. He then took up an anticipatory position right next to the drivers window. Honestly it was an absolute treat to see his big grin one last time when I slipped a 100 Dirham note into his hand. It was as if all his Christmas' had all come at once. Not bad though - 5 full days supervised parking for a mere £7.
On our way back down the motorway we were once again watching out for speed traps only to see these threatening shapes standing suspiciously under a number of bridges while cars and lorries shot past them at the max speed limits. Surprise surprise, not traffic police this time but melon sellers with barrows of huge water melons weighing over 10 kg for about £2 total (what you would pay in Bloomfields M&S for a mere slice?) In one instance we even passed a bus parked up on the autoroute hard shoulder discharging passengers who apparently lived in a small village that the passed close by, with access to a path leading to the village through a convenient hole in the wire fencing, leading down the embankment towards the circle of mud huts and the village well.
My new best friend! Just a few days ago our newest 'trusted' guardian who sits by the corner of our street guarding all our houses from dusk until dawn, brought his gardener mate to see me. I had asked him for someone to cut back and top my big hedge and my two orange trees at the front. Well he did a great job working from 8am to nearly 2.00pm in the heat of the day without so much as a cold drink (remember it is Ramadan). I was so impressed with his efforts and excellent tidying up that I paid him 100Dhs(£8) and twice the going rate and then gave him an additional gift on top. Wrong thing to do! He has been back two nights in a row looking for more work and last night rang the door bell at 10.00pm thrusting my hand inside this cloth bag insisting I feel the quality of the donkey dung that he had just laid at the roots of my hedge and trees. He also insisted I help him water it in even though it was pitch black without the help of a street light! I did humour him for about 20 minutes but gave up when the water was spreading the manure everywhere except around the roots, telling him I would do it better the next morning when I could see what I was doing. Don't think he was too pleased with me and disappointed I didn't show the same level of excitement for the task which he obviously had. To make matters worse the guardian was sitting on his corner perch calling my name 'Wussell' in a high pitch tone mimicking the way Roberta calls out for me from all corners of the house and garden. I finally told them both I was going to bed and gave them some left over orange drinks. Couldn't work out if this additional service was a thank you for my previous generous gift though I suspect from their faces they were expecting more of my millions which they are convinced I have stashed away in the house! Hope he stays away tonight!
Three more nights of feasting before Ramadan ends with the Eid on Monday, though we understand these can be the noisiest nights of the year! Can't wait!
We will be in UK most of August so don't be surprised if you bump into us. Feel free to buy me a pint of Guinness and Roberta a Pineapple and Malibu.
Not back in country until September so no more blogs for 8 weeks or so!
21 June '14
Been quite a while since last entry; this retirement life is very busy and very demanding, or is it Roberta becoming more demanding of me in her old age as I sit about chilling in the heat of the day? She has always a few wee jobs lined up for me! Amazing how things can change - last month Roberta actually came out and caddied for me around 9-holes of golf. Mind you she did insist on a caddie car and she did have a lot of questions on how come I was still so bad after all the years of practice I had. Trying to explain Stableford Points is nearly as bad as explaining the off-side rule in football. Things did deteriorate when she refused to get out of the car on the 8th green and bring me my putter, after I had nearly hit her with my pitch shot out of the bunker! We are talking again now but she has no desire to come back out with me to the golf course.
My name and shame section in my blog today, surprise surprise, is not aimed at some stupid Moroccan but in fact at the British Consulate! Trying to secure Rania her rightful British passport has been an epic battle with bureaucracy, British bureaucracy at that! Clare was summoned for an interview in the embassy 4 hours drive away (third time too) at the behest of the UK Passport Agency for a security interview. To cut a long story short at one stage Clare joked that the wheelbarrow full of paperwork was only lacking a sample of the afterbirth that the UK people could have tested for McCaughey DNA. The interviewer never even smiled when she responded to say it might still come to DNA testing. One look at the blessed child would confirm she is a daughter of her mother and a grand-daughter of Roberta! Anyway that wasn't the funny bit. After driving the girls up to the embassy I was bursting to go to the loo, so after Clare, Roberta and Rania were escorted through security into the interview area, I asked if I could use their toilet. The first man sent me to the main visitors gate where I was told I didn't have an appointment, so I couldn't come in to the consulate building. I waved my UK passport and demanded common sense prevail pointing out that I was a Brit abroad and in distress, needing their assitance. They stood firm, No appointment = No entry. I then suggested that I would have no choice but to relieve myself infront of their gate as their entry provided the only modicom of privacy for miles. If they wish to call the local police and I was arrested then they would have to get the consulate to visit me in prison while the Ambassador pressed charges. Anyway a second call to the duty officer allowed me access to the very outer courtyard where I was escorted into a toilet while the man held on to my passport. Problem was he allowed the toilet door to close while I was in action and everything went pitch pitch black. So the outcome was that I ended up peeing over half their tiled wall and floor inside the compound bulding and not on their front gate as I initially proposed. Moral of the story, always make an appointment when you are going up to a UK Consulate building just incase you need inside to go to the toilet!
Anyway outcome is that after a number of appeals through MPs and various other people in high authority, Rania is now officialy part British and part Moroccan. We didn't realise the drama that was ensuing in the UK passport services, with questions even being asked in parliament. Truth is the passport cost Clare about 10 times what it would have cost had Rania been born and registered back in the UK. Doesn't say much for the care and support provided by our UK agencies to those of us living abroad; we are more of a money raising community for the FCO. Next time you see a news item where the Foreign Office are providing assistance, think 100s and 100s of pounds but very little help! Now we know why it took so long to get Terry Waite and John McCarthy back. I bet you they are still paying the bill that they ran up. Mind you I should expect a bill from the FCO for use of the toilet and follow-up deep cleansing of the area - "that'll be a £250 'no-appointment-pee-fee' Mr McCaughey please, thank you!!!!"
30 April '14
Whaoooh! Two full years since we left my office in Belfast, packed up our car and drove off to live in the sun! Hard to believe it and who would have guessed that life is probably so much busier than it ever was back home. At least in DSD I could close my office door and take stock (civil service speak for nap) - not much chance of that here. Retirement is very demanding and I think I should have started it when I was at least five years younger. Big birthday next week but not quite the big 60! Don't know what the girls and Roberta have planned but I am hoping it will involve a walk in the short grass, chasing a wee white ball,
followed by a nice cold drink and then a sumptuous lunch in the sun-kissed patio of the Palmerie Golf Palace! Life really is hard, someone has to do it!
Anyway if you are reading this, it is because you were either too polite to tell me you were bored with my ramblings, or that you have nothing better to do with your free time, or that you lead a sheltered life and need a diversion to fill the void. Anyway you are still on my list and I hope you will enjoy this latest missive.
Rania is certainly making her presence felt here in the 'Big House', and we see plenty of her. The last few weeks have seen visits from Karen, Laura, Gillian and Aidyn. We had a ball and had the pleasure of seeing our wee one year old man taking his first prolonged steps across our big salon. He really is a toddler now! What a privilige to see him stroking Rania's jet black hair and kissing her cheek, quickly followed by bopping her on the head with her hair
brush though! I really am becoming one of those rambling Grandads who sees the sun rising and setting over his Grandkids.
Great story to share about Roberta, Karen and Gill out in Jamal'fna, the big historic square, one night last week. This man bumped into one of the three ladies rather forcefully. Remembering a similar incident when she had her purse nicked, she rounded on the poor individual to tell him to 'watch where he was going', in very rough arabic of course. Half way through her tirade she realised the man was blind, had his white stick knocked out of his hand and onto the ground and was in no position to 'look' where he was going!!!!! Now this story can be verified but I am not at liberty to reveal the identity of the individual who 'gave off' to the poor wee man. Needless to say she was very embarrassed while the other two were creased over in laughter. I witnessed another ridiculous traffic encounter this last week. Two men were carrying a 12 foot long 4 foot wide sheet of corrugated steel on their heads and were waiting to cross the road at the lights. I pulled to a halt at the red light and they started to walk cross the main street. Suddenly behind me two moped riders swerved out to pass me and jump the lights. Both were aimed straight towards the men carrying the steel sheets. They didn't bat an eyelid. Both the moped riders ducked down on their bikes and it seemed the men, in abject terror perhaps, raised the sheets up over their heads to allow both riders to pass, at speed, underneath the sheeting. The lights then changed and no one appeared to have noticed a thing. I was left looking around for the TV cameras thinking it was some sort of media stunt - absolutely ubelievable.
I did come across some media activity when a film crew were spotted on the golf course. So I quickly combed my hair, yes all of it, and checked my fly was done-up before wandering over to offer myself as an extra. Can't really understand why they declined my generous offer. The guy they were filming was all a bit ridiculous with his Ralph Lauren Polo shirt and colour co-ordinated gear. He was really a bit plastic and unreal. Can't quite understand why the sight of Dave Pickett and myself battling in sweat and tears for our own version of the Marrakech Masters was not more appealing, even if we both had our ankle socks on with our long shorts down below our knees and our proverbial knotted hankies on our heads - "eh up Dave, lovely day ain't it!" By the way, guess who retained the trophy for 2014 - yes me, Dave blew up on the back nine after taking four to get out of a bunker where his ball was lost and just happened to be found sitting plugged in an impossible lie! And no I catagorically deny that I stood on his ball deliberately. I look forward to the rematch in the autumn.
Got a wake up call last week in our language study - just before Easter Khalid gave us an exam and last Tuesday we got our marked papers back. In summary Roberta got a B+ 'could do better', while I got a D- and a reprimand that I was bringing shame upon his school. Reminds me of my GCE French result back in Belfast Inst in 1971! It is not that I don't try, it's my problem remebering vocabulary when words all sound a bit the same. Of course I still manage to hold on to the bad words like Charcoal (fckr) and Please (Ah Feck). What does that tell you about my mind. Another true example... I learned how to ask for the bill, "Atteenee HisSaab, A feck" Now my trick for word association was to say 'His-Saab' thinking of the man's Swedish car. 4 hours later we are in a restaurant and I hear myself ask the waiter "Atteenee HisVolvo A Feck" Roberta nearly choked on her after dinner mint. I tell you not a word of a lie! I was at the point of quitting school but then I thought of Rania and realised she is going to grow up speaking the blessed language, as well as English of course, but I will miss out so much if I can't engage with her in her local lingo! Maybe she will help teach me sometime in the years to come. In any event I told Khalid that I was his best sort of customer; one that will still be attending and paying for lessons in 2020, and he is after all making a fortune out of me.
Anyway, that's enough for now. Bislema, oo Shoufek MnBad. Russell
St Patrick's Day 2014
So what is St Pats Day like in the land of the setting sun? Well, apart from waking up to the glorious blue sky and sunshine and all the usual Marrakech morning sounds, it's just like what it might be back in Norn Ireland except there is no School's Cup final to look forward to. I always held true to the belief that it was against God's law to mow your lawn before the 17th March, although my Hanover neighbour Carol always flouted this local law with absolute impunity in an effort to make me and my garden look bad. Well, no lawns to cut here though Roberta did have me out on Saturday morning to cut back the 10 foot tall flowering Hibiscus which is shading our now blossoming Lemon tree and tie up the 3 Bougainvilleas growing up and over the 8ft front garden wall in nearly full bloom. And its only mid-March! On the negative side though my privet hedge up the side of the house is looking sad and in need of watering, something that will become a weekly burden from now until October at the earliest.
Let me tell you about our trip last week. We were kindly offered the use of an apartment in Agadir for a few days and as the Hassan II European Golf tournament was on nearby, off we trotted to see who we might meet. Lo and behold waiting for us on the first tee was Michael Hoey a NI Golfer of great repute and a previous winner of this very competition. So I donned my special St Patrick's Day (Guinness sponsored) hat and went up and shook his hand to wish him all the best. Now this is an unusual setting inside the grounds of the Royal Palace. Entry is absolutely free to international visitors and locals are 'encouraged' to stay out! This all leads to a very restrained atmosphere that would not be out of place in Comber Cemetery. You can only imagine how shouts of 'keep er lit' or 'bout yee Michael' from a man wearing a silly hat were kind of out of place. After Roberta recovered and got over her embarrassment, she was pleased to act as an on-course interpreter for the wife of the Englishman who was playing with Mr Hoey and for the Sky TV on-course commentator who was following this particular three ball around for quite a few holes when Hoey was charging up the leader-board. He did reach third place during Round 2 but fell away again to finish 25th or there abouts. Both Michael and his coach from Ballyclare who walked the course with us, were real gentlemen. Michael was kind enough to seek me out after he signed for his score to offer me his autographed glove in appreciation for having a Norn Ireland voice cheering him on for two full days. Cheeky me though, I then asked him for a signed shirt to go on my trophy wall here in Marrakech; here's hoping!!!!
Quick story about local wild life. Now you have all heard of our tales of fighting with ants, cockroaches and weevils in the flour but last Friday on returning from the golf we found a smallish black scorpion just inside the front door of the apartment. After I had recovered from Roberta's shrieks I took the necessary photo, splatted the poor wee thing with my trainer and wiped up the resulting mess taking care not to let its sting penetrate the toilet roll. Well, that was that sorted until I heard this wee pitiful cry of fear in my ear, 'but where has its mummy got t?.' Needless to say there was not much sleep to be had that night, dreaming of a big mummy scorpion climbing over the bed clothes while we slept!
Anyway that will do for now. Needless to say we are still on a high with a remarkable six nations championship victory against the French. Pity there are so few English or Welsh here to gloat over! If only Mr. Hoey had made those few 12 ft putts then the weekend would have been just perfect.
PS I heard a rumour that Man U did lose out to three dubious penalties against Liverpool yesterday, but that is too hard to believe so I will simply ignore such fairy tales.
Best Easter wishes to all our friends out there. Getting ready for a busy Easter and quite a number of visitors to Dar Baba. Still to relate the tale of the two-day Sabboah'naming party!
Russell
6 February 2014
Yes I am still alive and back in sunny Maroc despite the very best efforts by my mother to keep me in wet and windy Norn Ireland when I visited for two days just after Christmas. She managed to pass on her Norovirus to both Laura and myself though I have to admit Laura got it much worse than I did. Christmas was different in 2013: Roberta and I had the use of our good friend Conor's house in Liverpool from Christmas Eve right through to the New Year. After having Christmas dinner in a city center Chinese restaurant,we had a more traditional christmas dinner with all the family on Boxing Day. After heading back down to Sandhurst and fixing a garden fence blown flat in the winter storms, we headed back south to the sun on the 4th January. Guess what happened here, yes the clouds came and we actually had two weeks of persistent rain and wind. This caused a mighty cooling and I was glad to hoke out my jumpers and Roberta her electric blanket. When I went to my jumper bag I discovered in the 18 months they were in storage pesky moths had eaten holes in my two favourite jumpers. My good friend Farida got to work and immediately fumigated the wardrobe with some local concoction. The two prize jumpers are now adorning the upper body of our nighttime guardian. He wears both at the same time (thankfully the holes don't overlap) while he guards our street from dusk to dawn every single night of the week, Great service for about £8 a month but I will have to find him a set of earphones for his cassette player as I don't need to hear his arabic music blaring at 3.00am each morning right below my bedroom window. The first prayer call comes early enough at 5.15 without his singing to his music two hours earlier. I suspect he does it to let me know he is awake and on patrol. Actually we were amused when the rain was falling heavily to see a polythene extension to his small wooden sentry hut appear like a sort of conservatory. If nothing else the plastic offers some shelter or covering to the steel sheeting he nailed over the roof of the hut. Great shelter from the rain but watch out for a lightening storm!
Many people ask me about drving here....yes it is crazy but often great entertainment. Last month I was driving in to the city centre when I was passed at traffic lights by a moped rider. I couldn't believe my eyes, he had a pane of glass, 3 feet wide by 5 feet tall wedged between him and the handlebars, creating a sort of windscreen. All I could picture was him stopping suddenly and going through his own 'windscreen'. I was so nervous of this that I gave him a wide berth and overtook him to get away from what was an accident waiting to happen. Lo and behold he passed me at the next traffic lights only this time talking on his mobile with one hand with his elbow keeping the glass from falling. I chickened out and took a sharp right turn as I couldn't bare the stress he was causing me.
My plumber is another example of moped madness. After we had successfully remodelled our downstairs bathroom, replacing the bath with a tiled walk-in shower, we needed to get rid of the old bath. The plumber agreed to take the bath in part-payment for his labour and the day after he finished the work he arrived to take it away. I kept looking for the little Honda van that people use to transport bulky goods about the city but before my eyes the plumber lifted the bath on to his back and over his head and drove off on his moped. I hope I can attach a photo of this ridiculous event. Honestly this really did happen and was not manufactured by me. Interestingly the plumber was back to install a flue outlet for the gas water heater before we were poisoned by CO (the detector kept going off everytime one of us was in the shower). Well when it came to paying him he requested 100Dirhams but asked me if I would give him a bit more as he hadn't been able to work with a bad back for the last 6 weeks. I chased him and told him that carrying a full size bath on his back on the moped was hardly a man with a back problem. He just laughed as if to say it was my fault that he had hurt his back moving my unwanted bath in the first place.
My part-time language tutor Mr S has recently passed his driving test. He past the standard computer based test and then turned up for the practical part of the test. He drove the test centre's car about 30 yards through a pretend gateway, then reversed into a make-shift parking bay and back down the concrete road to the man observing his driving from a position in the shade by the side of this road. Imagine about 15 new wannabe drivers all lined up waiting their turn to complete these same dangerous manouvers. Of course he passed with flying colours and is now 'licensed to kill'; and he has not yet got above second gear. The irony is that I can't get a Moroccan driving license as the computer test is only available in Arabic and French, no good to me!
Anyway we are all settled back in to life here though to be honest with the arrival of my first grand-daughter, Rania Mary, I suspect 2014 is not going to be the same as the previous two years. Already she has me round her wee finger and while her cries are more like squeeks, there is always a race to be first to lift her when she announces that she has woken from her sleep. To be honest she is a wee Shields with a couple of chins. Her jet black mop of hair is maybe more like her dad's side but it is hard to see much by way of McCaughey in her at all. Oh well, she can't have everything!
This blog is already too long so next time I will tell you tales of Rania's Sabboa, her Moroccan/Berber naming party lasting two solid days!
Bye for now all you out there....................... Russell